


everything (between us)

by charleybradburies



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (Both actually and sort of), Accidents, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Sexual Situations, Awkwardness, Blood Magic, Boats and Ships, Bodyswap, Cousin Incest, Eventual Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, F/M, Female Friendship, First Kiss, Friendship, Half-Sibling Incest, House Stark, Identity Issues, Identity Reveal, Kings & Queens, Magic, Magic Made Them Do It, Magical Accidents, Male-Female Friendship, Orgasm, POV Alternating, POV Jon Snow, POV Sansa Stark, Past Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, Past Rape/Non-con, Political Alliances, Political Jon Snow, Politics, Protective Siblings, Protectiveness, Queen Sansa, R Plus L Equals J, Rating May Change, Reunions, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Season/Series 07, Season/Series 08, Secret Identity, Sex Magic, Sibling Incest, Sibling Love, Siblings, Spells & Enchantments, Travel, Vaginal Sex, Westerosi Politics, Woman on Top
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-03-06 21:37:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18859600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: Melisandre tries to use her magic to help Jon again, and it doesn't go as planned.[title from the song of the same name by liz phair]Please enjoy, kudos, and comment! More coming soon.





	1. Chapter 1

The letter arrives to Melisandre from Dragonstone, sooner than expected - yet, of course, not _what_ she expected. So little had matched her expectations recently; if not for Jon Snow, the priestess would think she’d lost her touch.

He is the part of the letter she _had_ expected. Lord Varys questions her, says that he and Daenerys are not quite getting on - but agrees they need to. Perhaps this is what she gets, for the suggestion. She does not doubt now that it is Snow who is the Prince who was Promised, but Daenerys was too exceptional to accept - not when it _could_ be her. Melisandre has served long enough to know better than to voice her disagreement so openly as to deny the possibility; she could've only hoped Daenerys would see it when she met him herself. From what Varys shares, it sounds as though she has found him enchanting, which was a fair reaction for any woman, but enticing men do not win wars simply by that virtue. Sometimes, they lose them - and he could not lose. 

With such high stakes, Melisandre uses her own blood for this enchantment - for understanding between Jon Snow and his queen, that they find unity through each other’s eyes.

~~

She wakes in a panic, somewhere unfamiliar, warm, alone, unsteady -

And not herself, Sansa realizes quickly. It takes embarrassingly long for her to realize to whom the body belongs, though it really only takes the scars on his chest - but the shock of it not being hers is worse than that. The scars, she knows from the outside looking in, not the other way round.

She’s Jon. 

She’s in Jon’s body, on Daenerys’ ship, somewhere...somewhere on the sea.

_Heading home, to Winterfell, with dragonglass._

_With dragons._

_With a new queen._

Surprisingly clean, and surprisingly overdressed, considering she’s only just woken up and it’s so very warm here. She’s a second kind of warm, too, when she realizes that the cloak she’d made for Jon is slung across the end of the bed, like he’d been wearing it and intended to this morning. 

It still smells like home, like him, like her. Like Ghost and roses and smoke.

She’s running her - his - hand over the fur at the collar, considering how she - he - should dress for the day, when a knock at the door nearly throws her into another panic.

“Are you up, lad?” comes Davos’ soft paternal voice, and she can hear the sigh of relief she releases, Jon’s voice behind it.

“Please, come in,” Jon responds. _Gods, that voice was so low._ “I need to speak with you.”

~~

“Lady Sansa?” calls a sweet voice that Jon immediately, happily, recognizes as Gilly’s.

He neither wakes nor gets the chance to smile before Arya’s hits him, too.

“Sansa!” 

_Sansa? Where was Sansa?_

He startles awake and sits up, Ghost jumping up from a place at the fire. _Gods,_ it was cold in this room.

 _Ghost._ Why was he with Ghost? Why were Arya and Gilly - 

“One minute!” he calls back, and it’s Sansa’s voice. He unthinkingly raises a hand to his chest, and it’s certainly not his own; he reaches for his hair and finds it tied into a high bun, and lets it down to see red hair he knows well, though he doesn’t know it against his back like this. 

_Fuck._

“Are you alright, Sansa?” Gilly asks, and he clears his - Sansa’s - throat.

“Gilly, can I speak to you...for a moment? Please?” 

“She left the please for last. It must be urgent,” Arya remarks, not coldly, though Jon realizes Sansa would probably chide her for it. Gilly laughs, though, and he needs to put on...something that isn’t...a shift. Or does he?

_Oh, gods, she’s in a shift._

“I’ll go tell Lord Royce you need a little while longer,” Arya says. He doesn’t hear her leave, but she’s not there when Sansa opens the door for Gilly.

~~

It turns out that Jon _has_ indeed been wearing the cloak she’d made for him. She can understand why: it reminds her of home, of Father, and it even still smells like _her_ somehow.

It also turns out that Davos is very good company. 

They spend as much time together that morning as they’ve conversed the whole time they’ve known each other, perhaps more. Of course, it probably helps even with Davos’ belief in magic that she still does _look_ like the Jon he knows - but he notes Sansa’s mannerisms easily enough, trying to train her away from them as softly as he can, in what little time they have. 

She knew Jon, and she’d spent time with Tyrion and Varys. She could manage the rest of this trip. She _had_ to manage, at least until they saw each other again. She didn’t expect to have to manage affection from Daenerys more than enmity, but she also doesn’t know how to feel that this woman is apparently enamored with her brother. 

Especially now that she is playing her brother’s part.

~~

“I’m not Sansa, I’m me, it’s me, Jon. I’m just...Sansa.”

A spell, Gilly decides, once Jon’s stumbled over enough words to form some sort of sentence - which probably helps, as it’s much more like him than Sansa not to know what to say, and it seems Gilly can tell. 

He tries to pay attention only to the order of the garments when she helps him dress Sansa - there were more than he’d imagine. It’s a wonder women were _ever_ comfortable, though he supposes one adapts, like you do to a sword at your hip. 

He’s keenly aware of the energy he’s spent trying to keep men’s eyes, his included, off of Sansa’s body, and here he was, with some ungranted permission to touch her. It wasn’t right, but the gods couldn’t save him from feeling intimacy in every glance. On another hand, she stood so perfectly, was so well-placed, he ought to get a feel for her if he intends to have a hope of managing whatever it is that’s happening. It was enough trouble to play the fool; could he play the expert? He hadn’t the time to play what Littlefinger considered a game, nor did he have the time to learn. 

He did have, though, what Sansa’s told him - and those lessons will have to be enough.

~~

She's sailed this route before, she thinks, recalling it easily though the scenery is accented with the winter's snowfalls. She’s seen the Bay of Crabs and the lands that surround it as it spills into the Narrow Sea. She reminds herself that Jon saw it only months ago, most likely with a view more similar to this than the Vale she remembers, and the reverse route. She flashes back to the little Winterfell she’d built out of Vale snow, and a small smile cracks against Jon’s lips.

That brings her first test, though she’s been standing on deck for some time: Tyrion coming up to Jon’s side to look out towards the coast as well - a question in his eyes, as they usually were. Fittingly, he looks more regal than he used to, the cloth of his clothing dark and the pin on his chest so easily noticeable.

“Have you ever been to the Vale, Jon Snow?” he asks, because of course he does. 

“Not myself, no. I only know it through Sansa’s stories.” 

The name feels so strange, to leave her mouth on another’s lips. 

“Lady Catelyn once had me imprisoned at the Eyrie,” Tyrion says after some consideration, half a smile on his face in memory - trying to push a boundary neither Jon nor Sansa wishes him to push, although seemingly having decided not to specifically speak of Sansa. 

“Do you intend to regale Lord Snow with tales of your disputes with his family?” Lord Varys asks from behind them. “We agreed to separate parents’ crimes from their children, and so on.” 

“Lady Catelyn was not my mother,” Jon answers, though not _too_ easily, in what Sansa believes is the way he told her he wasn’t a Stark when she’d told him of the white raven from the Citadel. “And I’d be interested to know what you consider to be my father’s crimes.”

Varys pulls himself back, standing somewhat straighter now. Davos had said Jon had been even quieter than normal on their trip; perhaps he’d not actually challenged their new allies to consider themselves. That was very like him. Sansa wonders when it _stopped_ being like her.

“Apologies, my lord,” Varys says gently. “It is not my intent to open any wounds.”

The words are chosen carefully enough, but Sansa must think of whether Jon would see the lines between them. 

_My lord._ She could laugh, or cry, but she’ll do neither. _The title is a wound by itself - though perhaps Jon did not see it that way._

She does purse his lips, though, giving little more than a nod after deciding she and Jon have spoken enough for now.

“My lords.” 

She bows his head and returns to the room where she’d woken up.

~~

Jon is very lucky for the mannerisms Sansa took from their father, for his own seem less out of place when he loses touch with his acting.

The Northern court is angry (with him, mainly), Vale shipments are being raided, and Gilly had confirmed that Sansa had unfathomable patience, which makes sitting still for this all the more difficult. Jon had used so much self-control the past few months, and yet the control he needs not to yell aloud in his own defense, let alone rush to find and embrace Bran and Arya, is nearly unbearable. 

And the clothing is still rather uncomfortable. That isn’t helping. 

But Littlefinger is gone, thank the gods - and Ghost is near. He can be happy for that, even if Brienne’s absence brings further concern.

_Sansa would suggest she got us Ser Jaime’s alliance, though, and she’d surely be right._

“My lady?” 

Maester Wolkan’s voice draws him out of thought, and he snaps his hand away from his face. Lord Royce stands in the center of the hall in front of him - in front of Sansa. 

“She didn’t sleep well last night,” pipes up Gilly from the corner behind her, little Sam cradled in her arms, seemingly asleep. “It’s barely midday, perhaps she should go get more rest.”

Jon almost wants to argue against it, but Lord Royce nods his assent. 

“We will reconvene at a later time, Lady Stark.”

“Thank you, my lord...my lords, my lady,” Jon replies, as sweetly as he can manage, but he’s never been the sweet one. He’d think for all the time he’d spent watching Sansa he could act more like her, but it was all...so much to handle. 

He almost catches a pair of eyes at the back of the room as he pushes the heavy chair back into the table, but they’re gone as soon as he realizes them, so he assumes perhaps he’s imagined them.

“Well, that certainly could have gone worse,” Gilly reassures him, back in the safety of the lord’s chambers, little Sam curled up asleep on a chair in a corner. 

“Be better if I could take a full fucking breath,” he growls, though he regrets immediately that this would be the context in which he spoke his anger. 

“Yes, most of Sansa’s dresses are quite narrow in the torso. They’re meant to fit tightly, but it’s awkward if you’ve never worn something like that before.”

She helps him out of it, not a moment too soon. 

“Perhaps if your posture was straighter,” she offers gently, and he’s glad for something to focus on besides the rest of the body he’s in, for he can feel too much of it now. 

Jon hasn’t had a moment alone in this stranger of a body all day, though, so he’s still grateful when Gilly takes her leave, petting Ghost goodbye and picking up little Sam, heading off to their family chambers. Sam would come see him later, and they would find a way to turn him and Sansa back into themselves. 

She promised, and he and Sansa both trusted her.

~~

She’s - he’s - seated by the window, hands closed in some sort of unspoken prayer, when another knock comes.

“Jon,” comes a woman’s saccharine, demanding voice, and Sansa’s - Jon’s - stomach almost lurches. It was such a casual address, and for everything there was a reason. _For some, the worst of reasons._

“Aye?” Jon replies, and Daenerys Targaryen herself opens the door and steps in - then closes the door and steps closer and closer. There’s something like nervousness in the look on her face, but nothing in her stride says that she feels beyond her rights to be in this room.

 _Jon’s_ chambers. _Her_ ship. 

She angles Jon towards the woman, softened a bit by the realization that Baelish’s rumors of her beauty had been at least somewhat exaggerated, though she certainly is a beauty. Jon, too, had seen Cersei, but perhaps Sansa is more biased, having met far more women in her fewer days than he. She should keep that in mind.

Daenerys reaches out for the hand hanging at Jon’s side, and Sansa lets her tangle hers into it.

She takes a seat on the bed.

_She takes a seat on Jon’s bed._

Jon’s eyebrows raise without a conscious thought from Sansa.

“You haven’t come to visit me again,” the woman says, a pointed critique of him.

_Again._

Sansa might fall ill. She feels Jon rocking about a bit, as though his body, too, had no idea what to say. Daenerys, however, has ideas of her own.

“I’m sure there are far more enjoyable ways to spend your time than sitting down here, thinking about the dead.”

He shrugs.

“I was thinking about the living,” he says flatly, and her eyes flicker with excitement. 

“About home,” he adds, and Daenerys’ face falls. She looks undeterred, though, if disappointed. 

“Something in particular?” she prods, and Sansa bites back a groan. She’d done it with Cersei and Baelish all those years, but it’s more difficult now, having to wonder whether Jon would bother. He hadn’t tended to at Winterfell, but it doesn’t feel safe to be so free now.

“My siblings.”

It’s not the safest answer - she has no way to know what Jon’s shared already, but it’s the best she has, and she certainly _hopes_ it’s in character.

Daenerys takes a moment to calculate her reaction, clearly able to tell that Jon doesn’t speak as though he intends to make a conversation of this. Sansa surely doesn’t intend to, but she can’t speak as to what exactly Jon would want. For today, though, she gets some control over what he says.

“Tyrion said he thinks the last time you would have seen...your two youngest siblings...was when you first left for the Wall?”

 _They have names,_ Sansa thinks. _Surely you must have heard them by now._

“He went with us,” Jon responds, drawing from Sansa’s uncertainty that Daenerys might recall any detail later, regardless of what she was told. 

“Yes, to piss off the edge, or so I’ve been told,” Daenerys says, conveying both familiarity with the tale and a slight disgust that Sansa shared. 

“As he did,” Jon confirms. “Off the edge of the world...although it’s not.” 

She nods, but tersely, letting go of Jon’s hand. _Please leave,_ Sansa prays to herself, and the woman stands up, getting close to her - to Jon. 

“Do I need to _command_ you to come visit me again, or can you come of your own accord?” 

_Is that supposed to sound like a choice?_

Sansa bites her tongue - as she does Jon’s. 

“I can do it myself,” he says gruffly, and Daenerys leaves.

~~

Paperwork. Gods, how he hated paperwork. He hated it at Castle Black and he hates it more now, even more because he doesn’t know what he’s looking at. Replies to letters he didn’t send, answers for requests he didn’t make.

Well, Lord Glover’s decision to keep his people within his castle - for that, Jon needs no real explanation, as much as he’d like one, as much as he’d like a chance to give one himself, as much as he isn’t sure how Sansa would reply. But how _could_ he explain - the way he’d woken up, vulnerable and in Daenerys’ hands, on her ship, seeing that any lone gust of wind could blow her another direction, needing something to tie her down to the commitment? 

Sansa would understand.

 _No,_ he thinks, with a pit in his stomach at the realization, now it’s struck him.

Now, Sansa would _know_.

If Jon was in Sansa’s body, then she must be in his. Trapped on that ship with no one but Davos…with Daenerys’ affections and her advisors’ machinations. He can almost hear how Sansa growling her disappointment in him, having realized he’d not only surrendered the crown but bedded the queen he gave it to.

He doesn’t get a chance to think about it tonight, though, for the door creaks open, and all of a sudden, Arya’s in the room with him. _With Sansa._

He presses the soles of Sansa's boots to the floor. He couldn’t run to her, could he? He had no idea how well she and Sansa got along, or if Arya would believe a word from her mouth about this matter. 

She’s grown so much, he notices in the moment he gets to look at her - her confident stance, the two weapons attached to Northern armor. _And one was Needle._ He gulps, hoping he won’t cry. Had Sansa, when they'd seen each other again, the first time in years?

“You ignored me today. In the Hall.”

“Did I?” he replies. It comes out more accusatory than he intends, more like Catelyn’s voice than Sansa’s, and Arya purses her lips, stepping closer and coming to the side of the desk where Jon - where _Sansa_ \- is seated. Arya looks at her sister with a strange mixture of intrigue and fear, like she’s considering that something is well and truly wrong.

“You’ve found me every time for a week now. You were barely there at all today.”

“It was...a very bad night,” he attempts to explain. He didn’t actually remember the previous night, not even the previous evening, really. Certainly not a dream that could have woken him, or anything, really, of the sort. 

_Was this a dream?_

He hoped it was, that he’d lay down in the lord’s chamber and wake up the next morning, without a day having passed or any of today remembered. 

“Let them out of your head,” Arya says, and he feels Sansa’s brow furrow in his confusion, and then, she’s drawn the dagger from her side, holding it towards him - towards Sansa - her expression one of anger now as well as fear.

“Who sent you? Who are you? Where is my sister?”

He raises Sansa’s hands above her shoulders in some sort of defeat. 

“I don’t know who sent me, but Gilly thinks it’s a spell. It’s me, Jon,” he says, as earnestly as he can, and she studies him, looks right through whatever sort of expression is on Sansa’s face. “I think...I think Sansa and I switched bodies. I woke up like this; it’s why everything ran late...why I didn’t know to look for you.”

Arya reaches forward and cautiously runs her hand around Sansa’s throat, eyes still trained on their sister's, then she takes a deep breath and sheathes the dagger. 

“Where were you? If you’ve switched with Sansa, where is she now?”

“On Daenerys’ ship, a bit north of the Bay of Crabs. Nearing the coast by Runestone, most likely.”

Arya sighs, then before he knows it, she’s launched herself into Sansa’s arms. 

“I know you’re not exactly you, but I’m glad you’re here,” she mutters, and he pulls her closer, as close as he can wearing fabric that’s tight around the arms.

“I’ve missed you, little sister,” he says, muffled in her shoulder and warm against her neck.

“I’ve missed you, too.”

She pulls back, just enough for them to look at each other.

“Though I’d prefer all of both of you here, to be honest.”

He chuckles, and it almost sounds like his own laugh. 

“I think I can speak for both of us, and say we’re all in agreement on that.”

~~

She doesn’t go visit Daenerys. She sends a prayer - to the Seven, to Theon's Drowned God, to the Red God that brought Jon back, to whomever among the Old Gods is far enough south to hear her - that she and Jon sustain themselves and the other, that they not be compromised.

She spends some more time looking at the coastline as they leave it behind, and then reports seasickness. They were making good time, but the waves were choppy, after all.

She wakes in the middle of the night, still on the ship, still inside Jon, and finds she needs to figure out how to piss correctly. She’d never thought much of it before, and it feels like something she shouldn’t have permission to do, but then, she can think of women who are less invested in Jon’s wellbeing who apparently have had permission to touch him. 

She keeps him abed as often and as long as possible. She manages to have barely any social contact for long enough that they are nearing the Three Sisters by the time he next needs to hold a full conversation with someone other than Davos, which is because the two of them are invited to share supper with Daenerys and her advisors. 

It’s an affair, meant but failing to impress; Sansa is long since bored by gestures of wealth. And at the heart of it, how can they have anything resembling a feast while the Starks exhaust themselves in the hopes of feeding people through the winter? She does not know whether they brought more than the rations that would get those travelling to Winterfell; somehow, she’s almost sure they thought of that as Sansa’s responsibility. How many mouths could Winterfell possibly feed? How long would they need to wait before the fight against the dead truly arrived - how long would she need to feed the Unsullied, the Dothraki, the dragons?

Most of the conversation stays akin to King’s Landing smalltalk, though, and she’s grateful. She gets to study everyone instead, under the guise of being quiet and attentive. They are not so skilled at hiding themselves as the likes of Cersei and Baelish, excluding Varys as a notable exception, who watches Jon nearly as closely as Daenerys does, and nearly as closely as Sansa watches them collectively. 

Varys seems solemn, displeased - it's clear he and Tyrion are eager to foster some sort of relationship between Daenerys and Jon. The woman is put off, visibly disappointed in Jon’s lackluster response to what Sansa can tell are meant to be romantic advances. It reassures Sansa somewhat that no one finds his reactions to their queen unusual, even if they aren't pleased with his lack of fondness. 

Sansa knows Jon wrote to affirm his belief that they’re in need of Daenerys - of the dragons and dragonglass and fighting men - but she doesn’t intend to let him give all of himself in return. 

Jon belongs to the North, and the North will keep him - for the North remembers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keep letting me know your thoughts! I'm loving the reception this has gotten so far. Y'all are wonderful and I'm honored to be providing for this ship fandom family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Shorter than the first chapter, because I'm making sure this is three chapters.  
> Update: NVM that.

Both Arya and Bran seat themselves about Sansa at court in the future, both armed - Arya with weapons and Bran with an expression that was somehow knowing yet absent simultaneously. Court goes easier for their presences, though Arya still seems to cringe when someone addresses her as a Lady. Jon can understand, but in Sansa’s shoes he gives a calm glance of disapproval from her left. For all her dislike of the title, though, Arya does seem to have a substantial understanding of the duties required of them in managing the household and preparing for the rest of winter, and for the war. Surely, Sansa agrees with his pride at it; he hopes she’d mentioned so to their sister in their time together.

With ease, too, but not with a knowing attitude, Maester Wolkan and Lord Royce supply Jon with great detail as to their plans for meeting Sansa’s expectations in the face of her responsibilities. Their distaste in regards to Jon’s decision to call Daenerys queen is clear, but their acquiescence to Sansa’s decision to trust his choice is even clearer. He’s lucky their choices were made before he had to be her himself, for he certainly could not evoke this agreement as smoothly as Sansa was always able to. But he can stand tall and slowly move her boots where they need to be, and let Gilly do up her hair and help with her dresses, and say what courtesies he remembers in the kindest voice he can keep firm, and with enough help, he seems to manage.

~~

They split off from the White Knife not a moment too soon, landing a couple of hours later to see Lady Cerwyn having made preparations for them already. Sansa is sure to express Jon’s gratitude, gratitude echoed only by Tyrion as he and Varys shuffle into the single carriage. Lady Jonelle smiles only when Jon says it, though the smile does come with pursed lips that indicate her own displeasure at the sight of what Jon has brought with him.

 _We need allies, powerful allies,_ Sansa forces herself to remember as she walks, slowly, with Davos, to the horses House Cerwyn was providing. Jon had written that they’d left the North at White Harbor, so the horses he and Davos had left Winterfell on must remain there, but seeing the lines of horses brought by the Dothraki emphasizes her lack of power in her own homeland. _No Northern ships, no horses of ours, no sigils to mark us as we arrive home, only Targaryen banners._ She can imagine the bitterness as it will show on Arya’s face, to have come home for Jon as their king only to have to see him escorted home like this. She had not intended to greet Daenerys as they had King Robert, but she hopes Jon is wise enough not to show bitterness in her. Tyrion seemed to have told Daenerys of how sweet and good young Sansa had been - ha! - and though Jon had certainly mentioned the changes in her, they cannot risk her being far too openly bitter.

One of the Dothraki men she recognizes does bring Jon’s sword belt over to him, and she steels herself to thank him, though she knows he doesn’t know the words Jon says.

"Keep it close, lass,” Davos reassures her in a whisper, helping her cinch the heavy belt tight around Jon's waist. She prayed she’d not have to attempt to use it, but being in their homeland, with their loyal Davos at her side, is some reassurance. “And don’t fear, I've got an eye on you."

He grabs hold of the bridle for her, and she remembers how she was taught to mount - and so she steps into the stirrup and pulls Jon straight up, pushing Longclaw over with the momentum she used for her right leg. It falls heavy against her thigh, but she clenches Jon's jaw and puts his foot into the stirrup as though it is nothing. One of the Dothraki men holds a white horse for their Khaleesi at Jon's right, and she mounts with similar finesse, looking longingly at Jon as Sansa recalls having looked at Ser Loras. If they didn’t so dearly disagree about political matters, she’d feel sorry for the woman, but she can’t quite muster it. 

_One last stretch, and we'll finally be home,_ Sansa thinks, and waits for Davos to be astride his own mount - the men he and Jon had brought along mounted behind them and Daenerys at Sansa’s right, the dragons flying above them now. Just a little while longer, and she and Davos will be back with Jon and Arya and Bran, and the rest of their people. And by now, perhaps Jon has enlisted Sam and Gilly in figuring out what had happened to them. Surely there was magic involved, but she could not know if there was any real way to fix it, or who would know a way; would it be Arya’s faceless tutors, or Stannis’ red priestess? 

She should have taken Arya up on her offers to learn to use weaponry, Sansa muses. Perhaps she’d be more comfortable playing a skilled swordsman if she had. She does, however, know how to ride like a Northman, so this last ride home should be simple enough.

A glance behind shows her what seems a near-endless soldiery of Dothraki, stretching back to the barely-visible carriage that would hold Lords Tyrion and Varys, and she bites down her frustration to look over at Daenerys and command the lot to follow as Jon and their queen ride forward, the Unsullied lead before them by Daenerys’ commander and the advisor at his side.

Daenerys purses her lips, as though displeased that Jon would command the troops and not her, but Sansa thinks perhaps she should note that the North itself has not bowed.

~~

At the end of yet another long day, Gilly comes to see him in the lord’s chamber, sending away Sansa’s maid with an authority he’s pleased to watch her wear.

"I might have found a way to reverse it," she says, tentatively laying a large leatherbound volume down on the desk and coming around to stand next to him.

"You did?" Sansa's voice is cheerful, disbelieving, but Gilly doesn’t smile in return. 

"In this old book from Essos, in a little story about a husband and wife," Gilly continues, flipping to the bookmark and beginning to intersperse her speaking with reading. "It doesn't say why they married, but that their marriage began unhappy but full of longing. The wife, wanting more and feeling misunderstood, went to a witch, who cursed them so they would gain understanding, by becoming one and the same with each other as in their marriage vows.”

She stops reading aloud, and runs her fingers near the edges of the book. Jon can tell there's still dust on the pages. He sees her tentativeness having grown to nervousness, and gently turns the book around to read for himself. 

Cursed to live in each other's bodies until the spell was broken, and unable to convince the witch to undo it, they lived as such until their understanding blossomed into love and they went to lay together again. At their completion she became full of the essence of him, and upon that moment they were released from the witch's enchantment. She bore a daughter from the event, and the daughter became a beloved witch, known in their village for her kindness. 

_Well, fuck._

Was this truly their only option? It couldn’t be.

"I can keep looking if you want, but...that's the only thing Sam and I have found that's seemed close." 

Jon runs his - Sansa’s - hand around her mouth. 

"We'll speak when she gets home. It's not my decision."

It sounds wrong to hear that in Sansa's voice. 

“Of course,” Gilly answers, in a tone conveying that she truly understands the seriousness of this. 

They could be each other forever if there was no way, no way even to know the cause, though Jon does have his suspicions. An old Essosi story it was, after all. He can only run on his faith on Sansa, too, that she’ll even return home to them, for surely she is not placating Daenerys quite as he had. Sansa’s social skill and Tyrion’s fondness were the best reasons he could trust that his body would not be ash before they made land, and the most he could do in the meantime is keep Winterfell functioning. 

He hopes she did not feel this desperation at his departure; she and not Jon was the backbone of the North, and surely she must know it, but if she did not believe so, he doesn’t know how she’ll forgive him for leaving her, and twice - least of all if they were to return to themselves. 

Sam comes to join them, a letter in his hand and his expression one of distress. He notes that there are other things to speak of, but hands Jon the letter anyway. Following Sansa’s habits more than his own at this point, Jon glances first at the seal - House Manderly. White Harbor - was it good news, or bad? The grain shipments from the Vale had been raided by the mountain clans, and House Manderly had stepped up to provide even more than asked, for their wealth allowed it. It was not in small part because Lord Manderly expected something in return, but that was to be expected, and even with talk of a wife for him - a lady wife, now, a less appealing prospect than a queen - Jon cannot be truly bitter. 

Good news, it turns out. The Targaryen ships had passed the harbor. They’d be arriving before long, a couple of days perhaps. Jon sighs in relief. 

Winterfell would need to prepare - with relief, too, that Sansa had apparently given instruction that they were not to greet these comers in the same manner as they once had Robert and his company. Tyrion and Varys might note the difference, but would Daenerys even know they’d shown her disrespect by keeping their knees from the frozen ground? He hoped not, but even if she noted the people’s wariness, surely Sansa could temper any impulses she had in response. With how smoothly she’d managed Littlefinger, Jon had more than hope that she was better at treating with Daenerys than he. It was he who was not so skilled; he was good with a sword, but his words often failed him, where hers did not. 

He would do his best not to fail _her_ now, whatever that required of him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's later than I thought it would be, so I'm sorry for that. I don't know if it lives up to expectations as it was even more difficult to write than I'd expected, but I hope you enjoy it, even though it's short and kind of complicated. Also I know I said 3 chapters but I think I'll do a bit more - some of the aftermath and something of an epilogue, perhaps. 
> 
> Note: there are mentions of Ramsay and of the nature of his and Sansa's marriage.

It’s quite an effort, but Sansa does her best to keep Jon’s expression neutral as they approach the castle. Their people, though, are not so cautious, nor is Daenerys, regardless of her having been told that Northerners are wary of outsiders. The Unsullied march, almost deafeningly loud, and the dragons fly above them; Daenerys is full of pride as the Northerners shriek, and Sansa can feel Jon’s blood boiling inside her skin. She recognizes many of their faces, too, people who loyally served Winterfell, and hates to see the way many of them look at Jon today. He deserved a proper king’s welcome, and yet he’d taken away their chance to give him that. 

Even so, she hopes he knows better than to have her kneel. They could bring Daenerys and her advisors and armies to their home to fight the dead, but they still ought to hold their dignity close. 

She holds together all the way to the middle of the winter town, where she reminds Daenerys of how wary Northerners are, for Sansa’s own people are still watching with fear in their eyes. They look at Jon with that fear, too, and it could nearly break her heart, but she leaves the expression of that to Jon’s low, displeased tone. _After everything they had done..._

She makes it nearly all the way to the innermost gate before her legs are instinctively urging Jon's horse forward, faster, _home_. She trains her eyes on her own figure before her, a strange sight knowing, of course, it's her brother who stands tall in her image, and she who advances in his. She ignores Daenerys at her side and even Davos behind them as she reins up, awkwardly bringing Jon down off the saddle, setting his feet back to the frozen ground of their home again for barely a second before rushing to Bran, pressing a tender kiss to his forehead and then standing to gather her own body in Jon's arms. He curls around himself, wrapping her arms about her, pulling her in as his own arms once would have, and she returns the grip.

"Arya is lurking somewhere," he confirms softly, avoiding the matters that begged desperately to be spoken of, and she wills herself to ignore that it's her own voice. 

"She'll pop up," Sansa whispers in return.

He raises her head after some seconds, and she knows that her blue eyes have been met by those of the queen behind her. She slides his hand to squeeze hers as they pull away, Daenerys, unspoken, approaching them. He would know from their coldness that Sansa had changed his manner of addressing Daenerys, and surely if Jon had made it this long managing to seem to be her, he knew well enough to adapt.

Sansa steps Jon back, just a bit, holding his arm out as though it would be an announcement of the other woman, and Jon presses an untrue smile onto her face, standing a bit taller. 

Daenerys follows Sansa's previous advice, in some manner at least, offering an empty compliment to Sansa that Jon doesn't need to look at Sansa herself to know is said with false feeling.

"Winterfell is yours, your grace," Jon pushes off of Sansa's lips, the tone no more affectionate than Daenerys', and Sansa nearly lets his lips smile.

~~ 

Jon isn't immensely looking forward to the conversations he and Sansa need to have when they're finally alone, but the stretch of hours between watching his body ride into Winterfell and being able to discuss the situation that made such a thing possible is nearly unbearable. 

It's not only the strangeness of watching someone - thankfully, someone he trusts - make his moves and speak his words for him, and the strangeness of doing it for her in turn, but knowing that it's a secret only a few of them present share, a secret that they could fail to be keeping at any moment. It's great relief to feel Davos' arms about him again, even though the angle is different, and it's a comfort to see Arya throw her arms about his shoulders in happiness to see their sister, and it's all of some help, even as he and Sansa need to negotiate what little can be negotiated so soon after Daenerys' arrival. 

He'd not forgotten the frustration of being around the queen and her advisors, and certainly not the Northern lords' dissatisfactions, but watching Sansa state his choice as easily as if it were her own, as though it had truly been her to decide between independence and protection, reaffirms that they are working as a team. Partners in whatever endeavors they had to manage, two people who trusted each other, who knew each other. She hadn't wanted him to leave, and yet had defended him in his absence, and now this. She deserved better than he'd done - better than he can suggest they do, going forward. 

But he sits the council meeting, and orders rooms made up for Daenerys and her company, and dragonglass atop the edges of the castle, and tries not to let Sansa's chest heave with angry sighs. It's past supper when he's assured they can truly be alone, and he sends Ghost to retrieve her, to bring her to the lord's chambers for what strange events need to come. 

~~

It should be a wholly mortifying concept, and on one level Sansa wants nothing to do with this, but really, they’d been alone with each other’s bodies for weeks - if they could not trust each other now, with such a thing as this…

“It can be good for the woman, too,” he says, gently, after she’s iterated the task as simply as she can, and she almost regrets deciding to do this.

“It doesn’t...I’m in your body. You know how to finish yourself - you do that, inside _my_ body, and that...if that’s not that, I can’t imagine what would be.”

He looks like he’ll argue. She almost wants him to, wants him to kiss her, wants him to take her in his arms and tell her he’s found pleasure in her, tell her he wants more. The _almost_ is harder to think than usual. _Her brother, and yet she found herself desirous._

“Good enough to make this go smoothly,” he presses, and she can see in her own eyes the look that Arya says looks like their mother. She sighs, the sound of him heavy from inside her.

“That I can agree to."

And so, barely minutes later, after having Sansa lie him down on the bed, and climbing atop his own body with hers, Jon grips his body's larger hand in one of the smaller hands of hers, wetting the fingers with her mouth and taking them down to her cunt, letting a moan escape as he touched her. 

It was strange, as she knew even better than he that her body hadn't ever been prepared for what was to come, and it was arousing. She can't help it, but she's sure that Jon's face is red, for she can't ignore the way her body above the one that she's in is making him hard. She knows this is what happens, of course, a man thinking with his cock whilst his eyes are on some pretty woman, but she never saw this part with her husbands and surely never expected to with Jon, let alone on this side of things. She's ignored that part of a man's nature when it's come to her place in his body, and yet she's not made uncomfortable at the thought that perhaps his willingness and ability to make her wet and ready before their act means that he had _not_ ignored the womanly nature of the body he's been in. 

_Had he touched her like this before?_ she wonders, with an unexpected fondness, as he uses her hand, soft against his, to guide his fingers into entering her. She's never touched _herself_ like this, though the concept has been given to her consideration. 

She's wet inside, in a warm way, soft, and deeper than she knew, and Jon moans with her voice when she pushes his fingers in, then reaches down to touch himself, and it's her turn to moan with his. 

They spend a few moments like that, their hands upon each other and their mouths silent save for moaning, before Jon decides that they are likely ready enough. Her fingers are light as they position his cock upwards, and her eyes are full of the question as he looks down at her. 

She nods, and then it's happening, and so very differently than it ever has for her. He sets her hands upon his own chest, balancing as he moves her body up and down, the movements so much smoother than she'd expected, for it's never felt smooth from the woman's end, and nowhere near as good. She gets half a moment to have a bitter hope that she never gave Ramsay any of this sweet, wet, warmth - he'd seemed to enjoy himself and her pain, but if she could feel truly good for someone, she was strangely glad for that man to be Jon. 

He pulls them closer and closer to what feels like an edge they're approaching, which she supposes is what it's sounded like, even only from her septa's vague description of how a man spilled seed, but she's never been near the edge before, not before now. Not before Jon speeds up above her, their eyes meeting and his motions still continuing, neither of them wanting to drag this out longer than they need it to last, both knowing it's not long yet. It builds and builds and she growls in Jon's low voice as it...ends.

It ends in one sense, at least, for one moment she's feeling a fire of arousal strumming within Jon's body and the next she's herself again, full of him and his seed and her own warmth and some mix of utter glee and desperate need. 

They meet each other's eyes again, and laugh, loudly enough and gladly enough she's sure that someone hears. _Perhaps Daenerys would,_ she thinks, bitter again. _Perhaps she'd truly realize her claim on Jon was not as strong as that of the other women who were important to him._

"Do you want to finish, too?" he asks, awkwardly, as though his voice is not yet his own. She makes no comment of how he hadn't been the one inside his body when his had finished, and nods instead. 

_Jon is Jon._ She repeats the thought a few times, and presses her knees down around his sides, copying the bouncing sort of motions that he'd made, though with much less finesse, enjoying the (now, somewhat strange) feeling of her long hair against her bare back. 

And _oh_ , she's so glad he'd asked, because she finds he's quite right - coupling _can_ be good for the woman, too.

He has realized something as well, in the moment that she shivers around him, whining with pleasure and then grinning madly, for he makes for them the start of something, and sits abruptly up into what swiftly becomes a deep kiss. His hand wraps about her neck again, fingers twining in her hair, and Sansa responds in kind.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some interesting stuff happening, including another Mel POV! I'm thinking perhaps another chapter to somewhat resolve things, or at least an epilogue. I know it's short, but hope you enjoy!

"Stay, please," Sansa murmurs against his lips when they're truly done, before she gets up from her bed, and against his knowledge that he should not, he nods his assent to the request. 

He _should_ leave, though, he should get up and put on his clothes and leave Ghost to guard her and not look back, but something inside him cannot demand that of himself. He had been a Northern fool for leaving Winterfell, but never more a fool than now. He'd never forget the sight or feeling of Sansa atop him, but he wills himself to forget that he had stolen a kiss from her as well. 

Still, a part of him is too aware that he had not truly _stolen_ , for she had given of herself willingly. 

She'd never known kindness from a man when it came to the matter of bedding, but she should have had better luck than for the man who wished to show her such kindness to be her brother. He was supposed to protect her, as he'd promised, not to be laid here in her bed, watching her pull on a shift and undo her hair for sleep. Her fingers were nimble, and he knew they were soft, and he should think less of them.

Jon hears a shuffling at the door, and realizes Ghost has been laid in front of it the whole time. He pads over to Sansa and then to Jon, happily receiving pets before heading over by the hearth and laying down to sleep. Jon chuckles, the sound of his own voice an odd thing to be making again. 

Sansa puts out her candles and returns to bed, barely visible in the bit of moonlight that was creeping into her chambers, and Jon can't keep himself from watching her. She seems full of nerves, now, and her breath is shaky, yet she smiles when she sets her hand on her pillow in front of her face and he turns over and laces his fingers into hers. 

He would be a true brother in the morning, when the castle and the dead begged to be dealt with.

~~

She and Arya have been chatting nervously in Sansa's chambers when Jon comes to them, his face heavy, a storm in his eyes. Sansa wants desperately to reach for him like she had the night before, but stifles herself, pressing herself down into her seat, attention only somewhat divided with Arya's nicer leather armor, for she's hoped to tend to it all before battle came for them, battle that was ever closer.

It's Arya, of course, glad to have her brother's arms back home, who gets up to greet him properly with a hug, but Jon still meets Sansa's eyes when he presses his head down into Arya's shoulder and lets tears come more truly. 

"What's happened?" Arya's quick to ask, and he gestures for her to sit back down. 

"Have the dead been sighted?" Sansa follows, and Jon shakes his head. 

"I - I've just talked to Sam a few moments ago," he says, and fear fills her. Had some more information been discovered? Would their solution to their curse not last? Even if so, this was not a conversation their sister had been fully privy to. 

Jon whistles for Ghost to go to the door, petting him before he lays down, and locks both locks. 

Something else, perhaps. 

"He - he and Gilly and Bran discovered who my parents are."

"Your mother?" Arya replies, her face lit up with disbelief, and Jon shakes his head ever so slightly. 

"My parents."

"What do you mean, your parents? We know who your father was."

Jon cringes, a tear close to falling, and though she's not sure what else she'll do with her hands, Sansa forces herself to put down the sewing, in her anticipation of...something. 

"I'm _not_ Ned Stark's son, Arya."

Both her face and Sansa's twist in their uncertainties, nearly ready to challenge him, because of course he was, no matter what some memory said, but he elaborates. 

"I'm _Lyanna's_ son."

He clenches his fist, and the moment slows. She's half-sure of what words are coming and she's able to dread them all the same.

"Rhaegar's... _trueborn_ son."

"Excuse me, what?" Arya cries, anger partner to the shock in her voice though she looks about to cry, just as Jon does. He almost answers her, but instead presses his eyes shut, and the tears come, so she does her best to gather him in her arms instead. Sansa stands and goes to his other side, leaning into his shoulder.

Ghost whines, but doesn't move from the door. 

"She went with him willingly," Jon tells them, his words audible even with his face buried in the furs of his cloak and Sansa's. "She - she died for...and then..."

Sansa hushes him, pulling him tighter to her. Arya curls into his side, and they stand there, no further words coming to any of them for an untold length of time, until Davos comes to paternally advise Jon to retire to his own chambers, taking Jon into his arms as well, though he knows not what's been said this night.

Arya leaves in her own time, her affection shared gently, sparsely, but strongly enough to garner Sansa's thanks.

~~

Melisandre is glad for her greeting inside the walls of Winterfell.

She was sure this was her end, certain that Snow and the living would win over the dead. She would willingly leave the land of the living and go to the Hall of Light when the battle was over, but it was not yet over, so for the moment she has Ser Davos and Lady Arya to find again. 

"No need to execute me, Ser Davos. I'll be dead before the dawn," she's sure to say when she sees the knight, not wanting him to draw his sword against her, for again they stood on the same side. 

He doesn't draw his sword, but the harshness in his eyes speaks his truth for him, and yet he lets her speak further.

"And Jon Snow? How is he?" she asks, a poor attempt at caution, for his demeanor immediately knows her question.

"It _was_ you," he spits, more disgust than anger, and she cocks her head. If he'd known of magic in his midst, who else was there?

" _You_ cursed Jon and Lady Sansa!"

She looks down to her wrist, though it's healed now, her brow furrowed harshly. 

"Lady Sansa? I - she was not..." 

She relaxes her features, more a show of realization than her own self being the littlest bit soothed.

"Snow has been a reluctant king, hasn't he?"

Ser Davos might as well growl at her for that, but he keeps the sound inside himself if it's there, giving her instead a practiced, fatherly statement.

"He relinquished the crown, believing it best for the safety of his people. He took it with Lady Sansa's acceptance of the lords' declaration and later stated she was better suited for such a role, even with... I don't see what -"

"She's the queen. To him."

Ser Davos sighs, a sigh that seems to be of resignation, though without display of any realization of what's possibly transpired between Snow and his sister, and Melisandre nods.

Another mistake, the resolution of which she wouldn't live to see. But she was not here for Snow, nor for that other red-haired beauty who graced his side, but for the other sister, another girl - woman, now - to whom she'd made a promise.

_We will meet again,_ she'd said, and meet again they would. 


End file.
